Disturbed that athletes are increasingly avoiding tests for the use of banned blood booster EPO - apparently due to cost-cutting efforts by their sports - the World Anti-Doping Agency is set to change its rules to make full-scale screening mandatory.

WADA president John Fahey told Fairfax Media on Wednesday of ''a habit that has been developing in many sports'' where athletes' blood and urine samples were being collected only to be screened selectively.

After a period monitoring the phenomenon, Fahey termed the practice ''menu shopping'' and said WADA was determined to stamp it out.

''There's a problem universally,'' Fahey said. ''We've seen situations where, to keep the costs down, sporting federations have even excluded testing for EPO which is the drug of choice [for a cheating athlete].

''So they say - 'we're compliant, we've done our tests, we've taken samples and we've had them analysed', but they haven't had them fully analysed.''

EPO - or erythropoietin - increases red blood cell production and has been abused for years in professional sport.

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WADA will update its code in November, with changes to come into effect globally on January 1, 2015. While sport's highest international anti-doping authority is still drafting its proposed amendments to the code, Fahey indicated that WADA is already convinced that it needs to impose strict new requirements to ensure that the most complete tests are always carried out.

''Anything less than the full menu is not acceptable,'' he said.

''So it will be incumbent on all anti-doping signatories, when they are undertaking the collection of samples, to ensure that the laboratories test for everything. We get sufficient information from laboratories to be able to cross-check, and that suggests that a number of anti-doping organisations have been limiting the usual analysis and clearly that has to stop. That will be changed.''

Fahey said he did not know if Australian sports were selectively screening athletes, but WADA's research has confirmed that the worrying practice was occurring internationally.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority could not respond to an inquiry from Fairfax Media about the issue.

Other significant changes to the WADA code expected to be formalised this November and enacted from 2015, include:

■ Extending the statute of limitations from eight years to 10 years.

■ Increasing the maximum competition ban for first-time doping offences to four years from two years.

■ Boosting WADA's power to penalise sporting ''entourage'', including coaches, doctors, physiotherapists, agents and managers, for involvement in doping-related activity.

In drafting the soon-to-be revised code - an exhaustive consultative process that occurs periodically - WADA has considered submissions from hundreds of organisations and individuals.